Ms Caroline Quinn:

In the 11 years that we had three special classes in my school, I saw a major sea change in the way the healthcare professionals had worked. In times gone by there was a huge issue. There was a dearth of people coming into the school and engaging with us. In recent years this has changed. I would certainly have seen it working very well in many cases. One of things we had said quite a bit was that if each child had his or her own team, and then some of those teams and healthcare professionals are coming in to see other children, then resources could be used in a much better way if a regional team was linked to a whole regional group of schools. I was in Killiney, for example. It would be much better if one person, whether it is a psychologist or an occupational therapist, was coming in to see several children. It worked best for us in our own school where we did our own pilot on a school inclusion model, and this was before the current pilot. We had speech and language and we had occupational therapy. We employed those people through the school. They worked with the school, they worked with the teachers in the classes, and they worked with the parents. They worked with the children at home. It was a real wraparound service and it was something we thought could definitely be rolled out and something worth thinking about if this school inclusion model was going to be expanded or changed. The biggest problem being faced by schools at the moment is where people are on statutory leave such as maternity leave, or where they are sick and substitution is needed. This is where there can be a huge gap in services.